Traditionally, hot pour products such as lipsticks have been packaged in containers such as bottles, jars, flasks, boxes, compacts and tubes. Additionally, hot pour products have been molded into various shapes such as a cylindrical shape or a pomade and enclosed in a container which may be of a corresponding different shape than the hot pour product. More recently, hot pour products such as lipsticks and other cosmetics have been placed in sampling devices for use in magazine inserts, postcards, department store catalogs and billing cycles and other sales promotion vehicles, and have been used as store handouts. The sampling devices contain a small quantity of hot pour product or a substance simulating a hot pour product that can be removed and applied to the lips or skin by a consumer.
Hot pour product sampling devices such as for lipsticks are also produced using silk-screen printing such as in U.S. Pat. No. 5,562,112. The silk screen printing method is relatively economically unfeasible and it requires multiple manufacturing steps to produce a finished product.
A method disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,072,831 provides a transfer layer of a colored heavy, waxy oily material, removable by fingertip and spreadable by skin, in forming an advertising sampler. However, this sampler is made from a composition which is intended to only mimic the color of the genuine cosmetic product advertised. The sampler does not contain the actual hot pour product advertised.
One method disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,752,496 provides printing a cosmetic onto a substrate using standard printing techniques. This method requires that non-dry cosmetics, i.e., lipstick, first be modified to a dry micro-particulate form. Col. 3, lines 53-55. Second, a carrier is added to the cosmetic to form a slurry of cosmetic. Col. 4, lines 33-35. Finally, this slurry is applied to a substrate.
Another method disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,192,386 teaches application of cosmetics to a treated substrate using screen printing. This sampler does not utilize bulk thin film application, i.e., non-printing technology. A need exists to produce hot pour product samplers using non-printing technology.
A need exists for inexpensive mass producing hot pour product samplers such as lipstick. A need also exists to provide a hot pour product sampler encompassing the actual hot pour product advertised, not another product that mimics the genuine product. Hot pour products typically have a very defined appearance and feel. A need exists to form a hot pour product sampler without having to form a slurry or solid before application of the product. Finally, a need exists to effectively utilize bulk thin film application techniques to produce an economical hot pour product sampler.